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Mirach's Goblin: Discovery of a Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Behind

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Mirach's Goblin: Discovery of a Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Behind Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. aa c ESO 2018 October 12, 2018 Mirach’s Goblin: Discovery of a dwarf spheroidal galaxy behind the Andromeda galaxy David Martínez-Delgado1, Eva K. Grebel1, Behnam Javanmardi2, Walter Boschin3; 4:5, Nicolas Longeard6, Julio A. Carballo-Bello7, Dmitry Makarov8, Michael A. Beasley4; 5, Giuseppe Donatiello9, Martha P. Haynes10, Duncan A. Forbes11, Aaron J. Romanowsky12; 13 1Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstr. 12-14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany 2 School of Astronomy, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), Tehran, 19395-5531, Iran 3 Fundación G. Galilei - INAF (Telescopio Nazionale Galileo), Rambla J. A. Fernández Pérez 7, E-38712 Breña Baja (La Palma), Spain 4Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), Calle Vía Láctea s/n, E-38205 La Laguna, Tenerife; Spain 5Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife; Spain 6 Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, UMR 7550, F-67000 Strasbourg, France 7Instituto de Astrofísica, Facultad de Física, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 782-0436 Macul, Santiago, Chile 8 Special Astrophysical Observatory, Nizhniy Arkhyz, Karachai-Cherkessia 369167, Russia 9 Nuovo Orione, 72024 Oria, Italy 10Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, Space Sciences Building, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853 , USA 11 Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia 12 Department of Physics & Astronomy, San José State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192, USA 13 University of California Observatories, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA ABSTRACT Context. It is of broad interest for galaxy formation theory to carry out a full inventory of the numbers and properties of dwarf galaxies in the Local Volume, both satellites and isolated ones. Aims. Ultra-deep imaging in wide areas of the sky with small amateur telescopes can help to complete the census of these hitherto unknown low surface brightness galaxies, which cannot be detected by the current resolved stellar population and HI surveys. We report the discovery of Donatiello I, a dwarf spheroidal galaxy located one degree from the star Mirach (β And) in a deep image taken with an amateur telescope. Methods. The color–magnitude diagram obtained from follow-up observations obtained with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (La Palma, Spain) reveals that this system is beyond the Local Group and is mainly composed of old stars. The absence of young stars and HI emission in the ALFALFA survey are typical of quenched dwarf galaxies. Our photometry suggests a distance modulus for this galaxy of (m − M) = 27:6 ± 0:2 (3.3 Mpc), although this distance cannot yet be established securely owing to the crowding effects in our color–magnitude diagram. At this distance, Donatiello I’s absolute magnitude (MV = −8:3), surface brightness (µV = 26:5 mag arcsec−2) and stellar content are similar to the“classical" Milky Way companions Draco or Ursa Minor. Results. The projected position and distance of Donatiello I are consistent with being a dwarf satellite of the closest S0-type galaxy NGC 404 (“Mirach’s Ghost"). Alternatively, it could be one of the most isolated quenched dwarf galaxies reported so far behind the Andromeda galaxy. Key words. Galaxies:individual:Donatiello I – Galaxies:dwarf – Galaxies:photometry –Galaxies:structure 1. Introduction large scale photometric survey data, such as the Sloan Digi- tal Sky Survey (SDSS; Abazajian et al. 2009), the Panoramic The Λ-CDM paradigm predicts a large number of small dark Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRs; arXiv:1810.04741v1 [astro-ph.GA] 10 Oct 2018 matter halos in the Local Volume, but it is unclear how many of Chambers et al. 2017) and more recently the Dark Energy Survey them are associated with luminous baryons in the form of stars. It (DES; Abbott et al. 2018) and the Pan-Andromeda Archaeolog- is thus of broad interest for galaxy formation theory to carry out ical Survey (PAndAs) of the Andromeda galaxy with the wide- a full inventory of the numbers and properties of dwarf galaxies, field imager on the Canada French Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) both satellites and isolated ones. The observations are certainly (McConnachie et al. 2009; Ibata et al. 2014; Martin et al. 2013). biased: the earlier surveys of the Local Group spirals based on In the case of our Galaxy, the main tracers are A-type stars photographic plates were limited in surface brightness to about 2–3 magnitudes fainter than the main sequence (MS)-turnoff of 25.5 mag arcsec−2 (Whiting 2007). For the Milky Way (MW) the old stellar population, which led to the discovery of the ultra- and Andromeda (M31), the recent discoveries of dwarf satellites faint population of dwarf satellites and very diffuse halo stellar were made using stellar density maps of resolved stars, counted sub-structures (Newberg et al. 2002; Willman et al. 2005; Be- in selected areas of the color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) from lokurov et al. 2006). However, the relatively shallow CMDs from Article number, page 1 of 11 A&A proofs: manuscript no. aa The diversity of dwarf galaxy properties in the local universe suggests that they have multiple formation paths (Lisker 2009). Some may have formed at early times in the Universe (e.g. Na- gashima et al. 2005; Valcke et al. 2008; Bovill & Ricotti 2009). Others are believed to have been transformed from spiral or ir- regular galaxies by environmental processes, such as tidal inter- actions, harrassment, ram pressure stripping, resonant stripping etc. (Moore et al. 1996, Mayer et al. 2001; Mastropietro et al. 2005; Lisker et al. 2006, 2007; D´ Onghia et al. 2009). An impor- tant way to disentangle environmental from intrinsic processes is to study nearby dwarf galaxies that are isolated from both nearby large neighbors and groups of other dwarfs. The existence of isolated dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies is predicted by some direct hydrodynamical simulations, but the true nature of these systems remains an open question. The transformation of star-forming, gas-rich dwarf irregular galaxies (dIrr) to gas-poor, passive dSphs is most commonly attributed to the effects of tidal and ram-pressure stripping when a previ- ously isolated dwarf galaxy becomes a satellite of a larger system (e.g. Grebel, Gallagher & Harbeck 2003; Mayer 2010). Dwarfs that form in close proximity to massive halos may furthermore be stripped by local reionization processes and internal heat- ing (e.g. Ocvirk & Aubert, 2011; Nichols & Bland-Hawthorn Fig. 1. Discovery image of Donatiello I dwarf galaxy, obtained with 2011) However, other mechanisms exist that can quench star a 127mm ED doublet refractor f/9 reduced at about f/6 with a Green formation and result in dwarf spheroidal galaxies independent filter and a 2MP cooled CCD camera from the Pollino National Park in of environment. The very shallow potential wells and low virial Southern Italy. The total exposure time is about 6000 seconds obtained temperatures of galaxies in halos with dynamical masses below 9 by combining (sum and median) images captured on 5,6,7 November ∼ 10 M can lead to an almost complete depletion of the inter- 2010 and 5 October 2013 with the same equipment. The total field of 0 stellar medium due to a combination of supernova feedback and view is this cropped version centered in Do I is 20× 20 . North is up, UV background radiation (e.g., Sawala, Scannapieco & White East is left. 2011; Simpson et al. 2013). As shown by Revaz et al. (2009), such systems can have star formation histories and stellar popu- lations very similar to those of observed dwarf spheroidals near the SDSS (with a g-band limiting magnitude for point sources the MW. A further mechanism that could result in presently iso- of ∼ 21.5) and the significant contamination of the MS-turnoff lated dwarf spheroidal galaxies was recently demonstrated by CMD locus by distant blue galaxies (e.g. see Fig. 1 in Martinez- Benitez-Llambay et al. (2013), who showed that gas can be Delgado et al. 2004), make it difficult to complete the census of stripped from a low-mass halo via ram-pressure as it is passing faint MW dwarf companions for distances larger than 100 kpc. through the cosmic web at high redshift. Although the M31 stellar halo photometry from the PAndAS However, such isolated dwarf spheroidals (dSph) are ex- is significantly deeper than the SDSS, its larger distance makes tremely rare in the Local Volume. Geha et al. (2012) found that 9 it prohibitive to resolve the member stars of their companions quenched galaxies with stellar masses of ∼ 10 M and mag- fainter than the red clump level. This means that the satellite nitudes of Mr > −18 (properties that include dEs and dSphs) population (and its stellar streams) can only be traced by means do not exist beyond 1.5 Mpc from the nearest host (∼ 4 virial of the less numerous red-giant branch (RGB) stars. The lack of radii). Indeed, only a few distinct cases of isolated dSph galaxies enough RGB tracers in the CMDs of dwarf galaxies with ab- have been discovered so far: KKR 25 Karachentsev et al. 2001, solute magnitude fainter than MV ∼ −6 makes it very hard to Makarov et al. 2012 at 1.9 Mpc, KKs 3 Karachentsev et al. 2015 detect these lower-mass systems, yielding a cut-off in the lumi- at 2.1 Mpc and Apples 1 Pasquali et al. 2005 at 8.3 Mpc have nosity function of satellites of M31 (see Brasseur et al. 2011; no known galaxies closer than 1 Mpc to them. Karachentseva their Fig. 1). et al. (2010) presented a list of 85 very isolated dwarf galaxy An alternative searching method is the detection of unre- candidates within 40 Mpc, ten of which were classified as dwarf solved (or partially resolved) stellar systems as diffuse light spheroidals.
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